A key component of this Individualized Learner Program is that the data will follow the child " the learner - throughout his school years no matter what school the child enters or transfers to " any time of the year and anywhere in the nation.
The National Skills and Core Knowledge Data Bank, a vital, supportive and integrated component of the new model is treated in much greater detail in "REMEDIES but is too long and detailed for this mini synopsis. The primary function of the data bank is to serve as the universally accessible repository for a comprehensive core of relevant content and skills - a national curriculum for all pre-K through 4 children.
To accomplish the goals and assure the success of this new model education system requires providing remedies for two additional interconnected weaknesses in the existing system: Time-On-Task and the School Year. It is not enough to have a great program and then to have it fail because inadequate time was devoted to implementing and utilizing it.
Productivity in our society is based on a combination of many factors, but one measure related to production and easy to measure is time-on-task. When you look at our current education model it is easy to see that our schools are not spending nearly enough time-on-task. We are out of touch with the real world and the need to keep up with the increasing knowledge explosion that challenges us all every day.
If you ask the schools to educate a student " any student " and to do it in 13 years, you would think that would be ample time to come up with an excellent finished product, but it is obviously based on a flawed model that doesn't work. In the new education model the time-on-task for learners and staff and the proposed modifications of the school year are radically different from the currently accepted standards. In the new model the 180 day school year is expanded to 225 days for students and longer more for staff. Students will get between 1,800 and 2,025 more hours of time-on-task per year or for an 85% (+/-) increase for each student per year! Spread that increase over 13 years, combine it with top-notch teaching teams, an Individualized Learner Program based on relevant skills and content selected from the National Skills and Core Knowledge Data Bank and the excellent finished product becomes a reality!
Staffing and Compensation are two more major components of the new model requiring a brief introduction here. In order to attain the goal of providing every child with the best education possible we must begin by radically altering current staffing patterns.
The Staffing goal for the new model is to provide supervising master teachers in every classroom supported by a team of two associate professional teachers, paraprofessionals, student trainees, parents and other volunteers. No longer will having one teacher, standing in front of 25 to 35 seated at-their-desks students be the accepted standard. It is not the way the very best teachers teach. And even the best teachers have their hands tied much too much of the time by the that's-the-way-we-do-it staffing patterns, curricular requirements, testing demands and time constraints currently in vogue in our schools today.
The implications for teacher salaries " Professional Compensation - are obvious. My suggested guidelines are that supervising master teachers should receive compensation ranging from a minimum of $200,000 to $250,000 and up. Associate teachers should start from a minimum of $ 150,000 and top out somewhere around $200,000. These salaries reflect the high level of performance and accountability and time required in the new teaching-profession model. Further, they make teaching attractive to those high quality graduates entering the work force who very often turn away from teaching due to more lucrative opportunities elsewhere. Higher salaries will also help to quell the high rate of attrition that costs US taxpayers millions and millions annually.
Chapters and topics about job creation, staffing, apprenticeship programs, parental and community involvement, testing programs, effects on student confidence and self esteem, failure rates, dropout numbers, bullying behaviors, childhood obesity levels, truancy, drug use, child abuse, criminal behaviors - the list goes on and on " will all be found in "Remedies upon its publication. And if you would like a much expanded version of this Mini Synopsis, click on the Education "REMEDIES link on my life coaching website at: http:/wwwlifecoachingservice.net (You may need to right click & click on "open hyperlink .)
*REMEDIES: 21st Century Approaches for Fixing Education by James L Horend
( by James L Horend 6/5/09)
No reprint or other use of this article or its contents may be made without the express written consent of the author.
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